“Yes.”
“Then you’re not an anarchist?”
“Good God.” Phil’s tone was of unutterable disgust. “Where did you get that idea?”
“No matter.” Fox waved it aside. “You say you live on fifteen dollars a week. But of course you live at your father’s home.”
“No, I don’t. I moved out two years ago. In addition to all the rest of it, it was a constant battle there to keep from playing bridge.”
“May I have your address, in case—”
“Certainly. Nine-fourteen East 29th. There is no phone. Four flights up in the rear.”
The phone buzzed and Nat Collins said, “Excuse me,” and reached for it. He said, “Nat Collins speaking,” and for something like twenty seconds merely listened; then he spoke again: “Hello! Hello? Hello hello?” He hung up and pushed the phone back, reached for a scratch pad and pencil, scribbled rapidly, tore the page off and handed it to Fox.
“A lead on that accident case,” he said. “Follow it up when you get a chance.”
Fox read the sprawling words:
A man disguising his voice said: “The man in a raincoat who entered Tingley’s at 7:40 last night was Philip Tingley. This is not absolutely positive, but 100 to 1.”
“Thanks,” Fox nodded. “I may be able to get at it tomorrow.” He stuck the paper in his pocket, and smiled at Phil. “Well, Mr. Tingley, I’m sorry you can’t help us out with a motive for that phone call to Miss Duncan. I understand your talk with your father began shortly after five o’clock?”
“That’s right.”
“Would you mind telling me how long it lasted?”
“Not at all. Until twenty minutes to six.”
“What did you do then?”
“I walked to Broadway and ate something in an Automat, and then went to 38th Street and Sixth Avenue, where we have a little office.”
“We?”
“Womon.”
“Oh. Do you often go there in the evening?”
“Nearly every day. I give all the money and time I can spare. I left there around seven with a bundle of throwaways advertising a meeting we’re going to have, and handed them out on 42nd Street. I got back there a little after eight and stayed until ten o’clock, when we close the office.”
“So from seven to eight you were on 42nd Street handing out throwaways.”
“That’s right.”
“Wasn’t it raining? You did that in the rain?”
“Certainly. That’s the best time for it. People collect in entrances and doorways and you have a bigger percentage of takes.” Phil’s mouth twisted. “If you’re trying to get Amy out of trouble by getting me in, I don’t think it will work.”
“You mean you don’t care to be implicated in the murder of your foster father.”
“I not only don’t care to be, I’m not going to be.”
“Well, that’s a strong position if you can hold it. Don’t forget, though, that you have one bad weak spot: you are Arthur Tingley’s heir.”
“Heir?” The curl of Phil’s lip was the next thing to a snarl. “You call it heir? With the business, such as it is, in a trust controlled by three decrepit relics?”
“The business is good enough for a three-hundred-thousand-dollar cash offer. And I suppose Tingley had other property besides the business, didn’t he?”
“He did,” said Phil bitterly. “And the whole works is locked up in that trust. Even his house and furniture.”
“Were you aware of the contents of his will?”
“You bet I was. That was his favorite club to threaten and coerce me with.”
“It must have been very disagreeable.” Fox, looking sympathetic, arose to his feet. “Thank you very much, Mr. Tingley, though you didn’t give us much.” He crossed to get his coat and hat. “Those things I want to ask you, Miss Duncan, they’ll have to wait. I’ll get in touch with you in the morning. See you later, Nat.” He turned to go, but was halted by a voice:
“Here, wait a minute!” Phil Tingley pulled something from his pocket and extended it in his hand. “That’s the Womon Statement of the Basic Requirements of a World Economy. Read it over. I’ll send you a set of our bulletins—”
“Much obliged. Very much obliged.” Fox took it and strode out.
Though he seemed to be in a hurry, he halted abruptly in the front room. Leonard Cliff was in a chair against the wall, reading an evening paper. Fox crossed to where Miss Larabee sat at her desk, and bent down to her as if the recent little episode with Miss Duncan had been habit-forming; but instead of kissing her he merely murmured in her ear:
“Has he been here all the time?”
Miss Larabee was apparently averse to whispering or murmuring in a man’s ear. With no hesitation or change of expression, she swiveled to her typewriter, twirled in a sheet of paper, typed on it, and twirled it out again and handed it to Fox. He read it:
20 min. ago he asked where the men’s room was and went out. Returned in about 10 min. with a newspaper, so he must have gone to the street floor.
“Thanks.” Fox folded the paper and stuck it in his pocket. “I’ll let you know if I have news.” He stepped across to where Leonard Cliff sat.
“Mr. Cliff. You said in there, regarding the adulteration of the Tingley product, that you suspected Consolidated Cereals because you knew how they worked.”
Cliff, his newspaper lowered, nodded. “I know I did. I was indiscreet. But you promised to treat it as confidential.”
“I will. That is, I won’t disclose it where it isn’t already known. In a conversation I had with Arthur Tingley on Monday, he too mentioned Consolidated Cereals. Are they major competitors of yours?”
“Not yet. But they—” Cliff stopped, then shrugged and went on. “After all, anybody in the trade could tell you. About a year ago Guthrie Judd of the Metropolitan Trust closed in on Consolidated Cereals and took it over. For the bank, of course. Do you know Judd?”
“No, but I’ve heard tell.”
“Then I don’t need to tell you. When I said I knew how C. C. works, I meant I knew how Guthrie Judd works.”
“I see. Will you be at your office tomorrow?”
“Certainly.”
“I may be dropping in. Much obliged.”
Fox departed, descended to the street — where the early November darkness had already made it night — walked and dodged briskly to Madison Avenue and six blocks north, entered the lobby of another office building, and consulted the directory panel. Taking an elevator, he got out at the 32nd floor, and down a long corridor found a door with the inscription:
Entering, he was in a small and handsome anteroom that was the antithesis of the one at Tingley’s Titbits. The walls were greenish cream, the lighting indirect, the floor’s rubber tiling dark maroon; chairs and a small table and a garment rack were of red and black lacquer with chromium trim. There was no one there. Fox glanced around, and as he did so a door from an inner room opened and Dol Bonner came through, with coat, hat and gloves on.
“Just in time,” said Fox. “I was afraid I’d miss you.”
She smiled without warmth. “I’m honored.” Her yellow-brown alert eyes met his. “I’m sorry — I have an appointment—”
“So have I, so I won’t keep you. Nice shiny place you have here. What were you and Leonard Cliff discussing at Rusterman’s Bar last Saturday afternoon?”
“Really.” Her smile showed, if not more warmth, more amusement. “That’s amazing. Do you get results like that?”
“When I have a good lever I do.” Fox smiled back at her. “As I have now. It would be cozier to sit down and chat and lead up to it, but we’re both in a hurry. The idea is, Cliff has told me his version of that conversation, and I’m getting yours to check up on him. You know the routine.”